Netscape turns to Debian for Licensing Guidance!

March 6th, 1998

When Netscape decided to make their client software free, they
used the Debian Free Software Guidelines for a guide on how to
write their license. You can find the draft Netscape license at
http://www.mozilla.org/MPL.
This is a historic day for us, since it
means that Netscape will eventually be in the main part of Debian
and all Linux systems, not the non-free section any longer!

A link to a press release (containing a quote of yours truly) can
be found at the bottom of that page. The Debian Social Contract and
licensing guidelines are at
https://www.debian.org/social_contract.
A web page on the Open Source promotional program for free software can
be found at http://opensource.org/.

There is work yet to be done — a few license bug-lets will be resolved
within the next few days, and once the source code is released there are
some parts that Netscape does not own that will probably have to be
replaced with free software.